[lbo-talk] Queen for a Day: My Gay Makeover

Gar Lipow lipowg at sprintmail.com
Sun Jul 13 22:09:09 PDT 2003


On Sun, 13 Jul 2003 18:20:39 -0400 Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:


>>Now the same medium features guys like Butch and Adam laboring
>>intensely to look more gay. And all across America, straight guys
>>will watch the show, and from their stained, sagging couches, where
>>they sit in their boxers drinking Budweiser from a can, they'll see
>>people's lives transformed by queerness, and they'll think, "Dude,
>>maybe someday that could be me."
>
>
> Wow. Sometimes I think there is hope for America.
>
> Doug

Damn - I really feel like I'm playing the spoilsport humorless leftist here. But is this perpetuating old sterotypes. I mean what if the show was five black man teaching uptight white guys to dance, loosening them up with fried chicken and watermelon.

Or what if it were five Jewish guys teaching wasps to manage there money properly.

I don't know. Maybe replacing a vicious stereotype (gay=pedophile) with a less harmful one (gay=natural fashion sense). But I do remember in the sixties, that a small but real part of the civil rights movement was fighting the seemingly harmless stereotype that blacks people are naturally musical.

I don't want to get prissy about this. But this show leaves me with a very uneasy feeling.



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